This invention generally relates to apparatus for removing a powdered substance from a container at a uniform rate and feeding it to another location.
In the commercial production of certain alimentary paste food products, such as noodles, dried or powdered eggs are routinely added to the flour and water mixture. The dried eggs are normally packaged in cylindrical drums containing approximately 200 pounds of the powdered substance. Heretofore, the dried eggs were removed from their container by placing the container on a vibrating or tilted table to insure that all of the dried eggs were removed from the container and inserting a vacuum pipe into the dried eggs which sucked the powdered substance out of the container and conveyed them to another location.
However, the dried eggs in the container often become so compacted during shipment, particularly about the walls of the container, that the vibrating or tilted table described above does not break up the dried egg clumps. Consequently, the level of dried eggs in the container does not decrease uniformly as the dried eggs are removed from the container by the suction pipe, thereby preventing the dried eggs from being removed from the container at the substantially uniform rate necessary for uniform consistency and quality in the final food product. The compacting of the dried eggs also prevents all of the dried eggs from being removed from the container by the suction pipe.